Bush turns up heat on Iraq

Arms inspections must resume now, president insists

November 27, 2001|By Bob Kemper and Steve Hedges, Washington Bureau.

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday demanded Saddam Hussein allow new United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq and, in the most explicit language yet, suggested the Iraqi leader's intent to develop weapons of mass destruction made his country a potential target in the global war on terrorism.

"My message [to Iraq] is that if you harbor a terrorist, you're a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist, you're a terrorist. If you develop weapons of mass destruction that you want to [use to] terrorize the world, you'll be held accountable," Bush said.

Appearing at a Rose Garden ceremony welcoming home two aid workers rescued from Afghanistan, the president demanded that Hussein allow UN weapons inspectors to re-enter Iraq to determine if weapons of mass destruction are being developed.

"As for Mr. Saddam Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back into his country to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction," Bush said.

Bush has long said that Afghanistan was "just the beginning" of his war against terrorism. With the Taliban military in Afghanistan collapsing more quickly than expected, and the UN on Tuesday opening talks on a post-Taliban government, Bush's comments immediately ignited speculation that Iraq was being considered as his next target.

Some high-ranking administration officials have urged Bush to go after Iraq from the start. But a host of government officials, diplomats and outside experts said an attack on Iraq now would devastate global diplomatic and economic endeavors and derail the war on terrorism.

The U.S. has revealed no hard evidence linking Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks or to the alleged mastermind, Osama bin Laden. So a U.S. attack on Iraq could destabilize pro-West Arab governments, destroy the growing bonds between Russia and the West and affirm suspicions in the Arab world that the U.S. is using the war on terrorism as a pretext to go after its enemies, government officials and outside experts said.

Moreover, any assault on Iraq is likely to splinter the delicately balanced international coalition backing Bush's efforts in Afghanistan. Coalition partners, including European and Arab states, have made it clear that they would not support an attack on Hussein, citing the lack of evidence against the Arab leader.

In demanding that Iraq allow in UN inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction, the administration risks running afoul of important allies, such as Israel and Pakistan, that have also skirted similar scrutiny of their weapons programs. Bush said Monday that the U.S. also wants North Korea to allow in inspectors to determine whether that country is developing nuclear weapons.

Eager to avoid upsetting their coalition at a crucial juncture in the Afghanistan campaign, administration officials played down Bush's remarks Monday, saying he was only reiterating the long-standing position of the U.S. government that weapons inspectors should be allowed back into Iraq.

Even administration officials who have been privately urging Bush to go after Hussein, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, have said the administration is still too busy in Afghanistan to consider where or how to strike next.

"We are all very much focused on the work that remains to be done in Afghanistan, which is substantial," Wolfowitz said recently.

A number of government officials and outside experts said the administration needs much more time to build a case against Iraq.

Daschle urges caution

"I'm not sure we're prepared yet to make that decision about Iraq," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the top Democrat on Capitol Hill.

Foreign policy and intelligence experts said it is much more likely that the administration will turn its attention next to places like the Philippines, where it can work with a friendly government to rout out a known terrorist cell, and use that time to build a case against Iraq.

There have been suggestions over the years that Hussein has aided anti-U.S. terrorists, including supporting a failed 1993 attempt to assassinate Bush's father, former President George Bush.

Those allegations were quickly renewed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and they drew new scrutiny when the Czech Republic revealed that an Iraqi diplomat was observed meeting last year in Prague with Mohamed Atta, one of the alleged suicide hijackers.

When anthrax spores were discovered in letters mailed to U.S. media outlets and political leaders, Iraq was again a prime suspect. It is one of just a handful of countries that have successfully manufactured the biological agent as part of a weapons program.

News that the terrorist hijackers were at one time considering the purchase of a crop-duster in Florida also suggested an Iraq connection. Iraqi scientists perfected a method of spraying anthrax through modified crop-dusting equipment in the late 1980s, according to UN weapons inspectors.